Nicodemus' encounter with Christ

Again, before reading God's word, we'll speak to God in prayer. Father, once again, it is a great privilege to call Thee Father and to enter into Thy presence with our need and with our burdens and with our desire to plead on the behalf of souls that are not saved. We turn our attention now to the preaching of the gospel.

And while those of us that are saved have enjoyed Thy word throughout this weekend and enjoyed fellowship with one another and fellowship with Thee and with Thy Son, we would be deeply aware that there are those that are not saved yet that are without God, without hope, and without Christ in this world. And they need Thee and they need salvation. And there might be some that are aware of their need and they're putting it off.

There might be others that, for some reason or another, have never really discovered their deep need and never come to understand that they are lost. Father, we would ask that their eyes would be open today, that there would be a movement of the Spirit of God to open eyes and understanding, and that there would be those that would come to acknowledge their need of salvation and that would turn their eyes to the Savior and that they would trust in Him. We do need help in presenting Thy word and that the Spirit would apply it to hearts and to minds.

And we ask for Thy blessing here in this meeting just now, giving thanks for the Lord Jesus and asking in His name, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. I would like to read with you in the Gospel of John in Chapter 3, Gospel according to John and the third chapter. While you're turning to it, I too will take a moment to express our gratitude and thanksgiving for being able to be with you.

And no doubt we have profited much more from visiting you and being with you and will go away encouraged from spending time with the believers here and listening to the ministry of Thy word. We're turning our attention now to the preaching of the Gospel for the half an hour that remains of the conference. Many perhaps are a little weary and a little tired, if you could just pay attention for another 30 minutes.

We pray that the preaching of the Gospel will be a blessing to those that are not saved, that even this evening there might be blessing amongst us. No better way to end a conference than to hear of souls saved. John Chapter 3, we're actually reading about a man that discovered his need.

It says in verse 1, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, that is our master teacher, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said, or saith unto him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of the spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, how can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know and testify that we have seen and you receive not our witness.

For the sake of time, I'm going to skip to verse 14. This is still the answer of the Lord Jesus. And he says to Nicodemus, he's answering the question, how can these things be? And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life or everlasting life. I want to tell you about a man and for just a few minutes, I would like to describe the character and the conduct of this man. And then I would like to ask you to judge or to answer a question just there in your head, not out loud.

I'd like you to decide whether this man is saved or not based on what we are going to say about him. The man's name is Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee.

In other words, he belonged to a very, very religious group. Nicodemus was a man that would have memorized large portions of the Old Testament. So very likely you would be able to go to Nicodemus if you had a question, for example, about a passage in the book of Exodus or the book of Genesis or one of the Old Testament passages, and you had a question about that passage, you would be able to go to Nicodemus and to ask him a question and he would very likely know the exact passage that you're talking about.

He would have memorized that passage and perhaps he'd be able to answer your questions. Nicodemus was a man that would pray. The Pharisees were known for their prayer life and they would actually go to public places.

They weren't ashamed of their religion. They would go to the town centers or to the park and if there had been Pharisees living here in Garneville, you would be able to walk out of this building at certain times and you would see them right there in the park in a public place and they'd be lifting up their hands in prayer. They weren't ashamed and they would pray to God and they would have all sorts of religious rules.

Things that they would follow. Their religion was their life. From the moment they woke up in the morning to the moment they would go to bed at night, they would be thinking and focusing upon their religion and that's the way Nicodemus was.

He was a man of prayer, a man with some knowledge of the scriptures. He was a man that would teach others the things of God and he was also a man that had observed the Lord Jesus because that is why he comes to see the Lord Jesus. He says to the Lord Jesus when he comes to see him, nobody can do the miracles that you are doing if God isn't with him.

He had been observing the Lord Jesus to some degree so that if somebody asked him a question about the Lord Jesus, a simple question about what Christ had done, he would be able to answer. So based on that information, what would your conclusion be? If you had met Nicodemus and you had seen all of his activity and you had observed his conduct, all that he's a man of prayer, he's a man that can quote passages from the scripture, he's a man that can teach us something about the Bible, he's a man that can talk to us a little bit about the Lord Jesus, what would your conclusion be? Would you conclude that he was saved or not saved? Well, we might conclude that he was saved, right? Let me ask you a question before I give you the answer. Are there perhaps some young people here or children that are a little bit like Nicodemus in the sense that you have memorized a multitude of scriptures in your Sunday school? If you have, that is wonderful.

The Word of God gives light. Perhaps you often pray. You might have the habit of in the evening as you're going to bed of praying for your parents, praying for your school friends, praying for whatever the needs might be.

You might very well be able to talk to your friends about the Lord Jesus. Perhaps you even are so brave that you would go to school and in your classroom or on the playground or when you're hanging out with your friends, you would just ask them and tell them, you know what, you need to be saved. And you would begin to talk about the Lord Jesus.

There are people that have actually done that, have witnessed to their friends about salvation and they weren't saved themselves. Nicodemus was not saved and he comes to the Lord Jesus and he comes with this outward appearance of religion, this outward appearance of righteousness, of holiness, a prayer life, a knowledge of scripture. But he comes to Christ and the Lord Jesus can see right through the facade, can see right into his interior, right into his very heart.

And his first response to Nicodemus is this, you must be born again. Now, dear friend, in the meeting tonight, if there are any like this, I can tell you I cannot see through you. I cannot see into your hearts, but God can.

And God knows if you have been born again or not. He knows if you're saved. It is easy to say that you're saved.

It is easy to fool yourself and I'm not suggesting that anyone is fooling themselves, but it is easy to fool yourself. It is easy to fool others. It is easy to fool your parents.

It is easy to fool elders in the assembly, but you will never fool God. And Nicodemus, he wasn't trying to fool anybody. He was curious.

He was interested. He was having thoughts of who is this man? Surely he's a great teacher come from God. The things that he is doing, God must be with him.

And Nicodemus comes to the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus says to him, you must be born again. I imagine that that was an eye opening moment for Nicodemus. Would you not agree? Shocking to learn that he wasn't ready, that he needed something, that in spite of what he had, his religion, his knowledge of God, and his upright living, that he was lacking.

That would be a shock for a man like Nicodemus. And maybe it is shocking for somebody tonight to get their eyes open to understand that in spite of my knowledge of the Bible, in spite of attending all these gospel meetings, in spite of not living like my friends and doing the things that they do, I'm not saved. I'm not ready.

That was Nicodemus. Did you notice that the Lord Jesus tells him on three occasions that he must be born again? I want to, for a brief moment, speak to those that might have an attitude a little bit like this. Might be saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I need to be saved.

I know I hear preachers talk about being saved constantly. My parents are constantly after me saying you need to be saved. Let me ask you this.

Do you really believe that this is something you need? That salvation is absolutely necessary? The problem is, at times, we don't know what is absolutely necessary and what is just simply a want or desire. Well, I need the latest iPhone. I need that outfit for school.

I need it all my. We don't really need it. But when the Lord Jesus here talks about salvation, he is talking about something absolutely essential, something that you definitely need.

And he says that it is a universal need. He says, except a man. What are you saying is this? Every single person needs to be born again.

He's saying there's not one person that does not need this. What does that mean for you and I? That means that we need it, that you need it, that I need it, that we both need to be born again. We need to.

He says, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Marvel not that I say unto ye, you must be born again. You cannot enter in the kingdom of God without being born again.

It's impossible. Impossible to be in the presence of God, to enter into the kingdom of God, to be in heaven without God's salvation. Time is passing very quickly and there's much in this story, but I want to very.

Briefly. Briefly. Ask you, why would you ever need to be born again? Why would you need to be saved? Let's just use the word saved.

Why would you need to be saved or what do you need to be saved from? I remember a conversation we had with a young lady that was attending gospel meetings and we went to visit her because the idea was to try to find out what she understood about the message that we were preaching. And I would love to sit down with you if you're not saved and talk about these things. But we asked her, you would realize that we are preaching constantly about salvation and being saved.

And so we asked her, do you understand what it means to be saved? She said, no, I don't. So we said to her, well, being saved when the Bible talks about being saved or born again, it is referring to being delivered from the punishment of your sin. In fact, it is being saved from the power of your sin in this lifetime and saved from the penalty and the destruction of sin in the future, in the judgment.

And we tried to explain to her that every person has sinned and it is because of sin that we need to be saved. And I hope you're very clear in that point, it is that you need to be saved from sin. It's not just that you need to be saved because we say so, or because the Bible says so, it's that you need to be saved from sin.

And we tried to explain that to the young lady and she had a question that I never anticipated. She looked at us and she said, well, what kind of sins could I possibly have? She was living with a man that wasn't her husband. She likely had a long history of other sins.

But what really spoke to me was this, that here was a person that really didn't have any concept of what sin is. We could spend a great deal of time trying to explain to you what sin is, and I think it would be worthwhile. What is sin? Sin is lawlessness.

Sin is breaking the commandments of God. Did you know that sin is also when we do not do what God desires? This one might be a little bit mind-boggling for us, but do you know that we can sin without doing anything? Theologians call those sins of omission. When God would have us to do something, when he desires us to do something, for example, it says in the Bible, he that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

So that when I know that there's something good that I should do and I abstain from doing it, that is even sin. The fact of the matter is that we sin so much, so frequently, and that we have no idea that we're even doing it. You could start with the top of your head and work to the bottom of your feet and try to calculate the ways and the times and the manners in which we sin.

We would sin with our minds. We would sin with our eyes. We would sin with our lips and our mouth.

We would sin with our thoughts. We would sin in action and in deed. And we are constantly sinning, and therefore we must have our sins forgiven.

We must be born from above. We must be born again, or we will never enter into God's kingdom. And that is what Nicodemus is finding out here.

A shock to this man. A man that is so religious, has led such a good life, but yet is so far from the kingdom of God. Is there anybody like that here? Nicodemus, thankfully, has his conscience stirred and his interest piqued, and now he's listening to the Savior, and he doesn't understand at first what the Savior is talking about.

How can these things be? How can a man be born again when he is old? I really don't understand it. And if you really don't understand what it means to be saved, that's what we're trying to explain to you. It is having your sins forgiven.

It is receiving forgiveness from God. It is being born again with a spiritual life. And Nicodemus is interested now, and he says to the Lord Jesus, how can these things be? Or in other words, how can I be saved? How can I be born again? Well, the Lord Jesus begins to give him an illustration.

He makes reference to a story in the Old Testament that Nicodemus would understand. The story of Moses and the serpent in the wilderness, and the little children here would be able to tell that story, right? You've heard it in your Sunday school, that there was an occasion when in the desert, the people began to murmur against God, to talk bad about God, and to murmur against Moses. Why have you brought us out here? We're going to die in the wilderness.

You ever begin to complain against God? You ever been angry with God about your circumstances, about what's happening in your life? And the people are murmuring, and so God sends serpents or snakes, venomous snakes, that begin to bite the people, and a great multitude of people died. I want you to notice something. Notice this, please, in that story.

I know we didn't read it, but it's one of the details. The people had sinned against God, and they just kept on going about their business, so to speak, until others began to die. And at that point, when they began to look around, and to see that some of their friends, some of their family members had died, is when they began to think about their own mortality, and began to think about their own future, and for the first time they admitted and confessed before God, we have sinned.

Dear friend, death speaks very loudly, and I don't know, perhaps there are some that have been shaken by the death of a loved one, or the death of a community member, death of an acquaintance, and now you're beginning to think of your own mortality and your own death. And you're asking yourself, if I had died, where would I be? I know the reality of that, for when my brother-in-law died in an accident, and I looked at his body lying there, I asked myself the same question, if I had died, where would I be? And I knew the answer, and you know the answer too, if you're not saved. And those people that day, in those days in the camp of Israel, bodies, dead loved ones that had deceased, that had died, and they're looking around, and they're beginning to realize this, I have sinned, we have sinned, and they begin to make confession before God.

And dear friend in the meeting tonight, young one, older one, if you have never acknowledged your sin before God, it's time to get honest with God, to face your sin, to examine your life, to look over your little history, to look at the present and see what you're doing, and take a look into the future and see where you're going because of your sin. And this people, they cried out to God, to Moses, we have sinned against God. Moses, he makes intercession for them, and he prays to God, and God gives, provides a solution.

Notice, please, that it is God who provides the solution. It is not that the people are running around the camp looking for the solution, trying to figure out, they may have done that, but it wasn't up to them. The solution came from God.

And so if you have looked inward, and you have seen your sin, you must look to God for the solution. And God tells Moses the following, you must make a serpent of brass, put it upon a pole, and raise it up in the midst of that camp. And you can see Moses, he would fashion that serpent, or that snake, and he would place it upon a pole, and he would raise it up in the camp, and then he would begin to proclaim a message.

And he would tell the people what God had said. It wasn't that Moses was inventing things, that he was just using his imagination. He was communicating the truth of God, which is what we're trying to do today.

And he would lift it up, and he would say, whosoever looks will live. Whosoever. You could see people in that crowd, if you could use your imagination, thousands and thousands of people, many that had been bitten, many that were near death, many that were dying.

And those people would be looking at their wound, they would be looking at what had happened. They would be feeling the pain, the sting of the venom that was coursing through their body. A beautiful picture of what sin has done.

And my friend, you can stand, and you can stare upon your sin, and it would be good to do so. And see the pain and the destruction, and all that it has caused in your life. And realize that it is leading you to death and eternal destruction.

But those people that day staring at their wounds, at where they had been bitten, they were never going to be healed. They were never going to be saved if they continued to look there. They had to turn and they had to look at the serpent.

They had to look at the snake that Moses had lifted up. There was no magical powers in the snake. It was that they were to believe what God had said.

God had said if they looked, they would live. So let me ask you this. Of the thousands of people in that camp, which of those people lived? What are the people that lived? Only the ones that looked, right? You had to look to live.

So if there was somebody in that camp that never looked, had been bitten, and never looked, never believed God's message, that person perished. Would you notice, please, that when Moses lifted up the serpent, the snake, the message was for everybody, right? It wasn't that Moses said, well, if only if the females, if the ladies could look, they will live. Men, sorry.

Or children, if you look, you'll live. But adults, there's no salvation for you. No, it was for whosoever.

There was an opportunity for every single person in that camp. Every single one could have been saved. But realize this, only, only those that believed God and looked were saved.

Why is that important? Well, look at what the Lord Jesus is saying to Nicodemus. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man. That's a title for the Lord Jesus.

Just like Moses raised up that snake over a pole, the Lord Jesus will have to be raised up on a cross. And again, the young ones here can repeat the story as well as I. How that the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, voluntarily went to the cross. How he was beaten and crowned with thorns, scourged, spit upon, and finally nailed to that cross.

And his cross was lifted up. Did you notice the following verse, verse 15? It's a verse that you know well because it's the same as the latter part of verse 16. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Think back to that illustration for just a moment. Put yourself into that crowd, snakes everywhere, multitudes that had died and perished without salvation.

You have been bitten and you hear the words of life and you hear what Moses is proclaiming the message of God. And you understand that there is salvation for you. And you realize all I have to do is look and God says I'll live.

Now bring yourself back to this meeting. Here you are. All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Sad to say there are multitudes in this world that have perished without ever looking, looking to the Savior. There are those in this room that have looked to Christ. We have looked to him.

We have believed what God has said and we have been saved. You could imagine in that camp, couldn't you? Parents perhaps that had been bitten and had looked and they're pleading with their children. You only have to look.

Others pleading with their spouses, their wives, their husbands, their friends, longing that they would be healed. But yet it was an individual thing. That person had to look.

There was salvation for them. But they had a great responsibility. That to look.

My friend, we can plead with you all night tonight. And we can try to convince you of your need. There might have been some in that camp that said, no, I think I'm fine.

I'm good. And there might be some like that tonight. And we can plead with you and we can beg you to see your need and to look.

But it comes down to you and your responsibility. But notice this verse and we'll finish. The great verse of John 3 16.

It is found in this context. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that he would be lifted up, that whosoever, their salvation for the whosoever tonight, whosoever believeth, looketh to him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And that camp that day when a person would look.

Instantly, that person was here. Believing God. If you believe God today, what he says about his son being lifted up and given on the cross and his finished work.

This verse says, whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Oh, that you could look. Look first at what sin has wrought in your life and then turn and look to the Savior and be saved even this evening.

Let us pray. Father in heaven, we are so blessed. We're so greatly blessed and privileged to have thy word and to be able to share it and to meditate upon it and think upon it.

Thy word is so powerful and thou art a loving and saving God, desiring mercy for all. We do pray for those that have just listened to the gospel, that they might see their need, that like Nicodemus, they might come to the Lord Jesus, that they might come believing and then they might trust in him. They might be saved even tonight.

Oh, bless thy word, we pray. We give thanks for the food that has been prepared, for the fellowship that we have enjoyed and all thy rich blessings. We long to come together again to be with thee and to be with each other, giving thanks again in the Lord Jesus name.

Amen.